hobbies treadle fretsaw i have just bought

[John Brighter33]

Hi. I lost all my Hobbies Weekly(s) and annuals when the roof of my shed was damaged in bad weather. I am now buying what I can on ebay and refurbishing a new garden shed/workshop. I am overhauling my Little Gem fret machine and giving it a new coat of paint. I am hoping that treadling the machine will strengthen my wobbly old legs. My GP thinks it is a brilliant idea. And of course I should be able to make some lovely keepsakes for my family. Fingers crossed, etc. Thanks for getting back to me and I sincerely hope that others will find my post helpful and that they too will reply and get back to me. Thanks. Warmest regards to you and yours, John.

 

[jpw123]

I have just purchased this saw for 30 pounds seems to be in good condition been restored but just been as a display item I am assured by the seller that the clamps are there and the tensioning part at back they said belt might need tightening

I sorted postage with them for 20 pounds so not bad I seen some in worse condition go for about 45 , I took a bit of a punt but hopefully be ok

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fretwork-Trea ... true&rt=nc

Hi mac,
not sure if this is any use to you other than interest, mine is hobbies a1, have a look at this link
http://toolemerablog.typepad.com/toolem ... oklet.html

happy new machine,
John

 

[scrimper]

Hi. I lost all my Hobbies Weekly(s) and annuals when the roof of my shed was damaged in bad weather. I am now buying what I can on ebay and refurbishing a new garden shed/workshop. I am overhauling my Little Gem fret machine and giving it a new coat of paint. I am hoping that treadling the machine will strengthen my wobbly old legs. My GP thinks it is a brilliant idea. And of course I should be able to make some lovely keepsakes for my family. Fingers crossed, etc. Thanks for getting back to me and I sincerely hope that others will find my post helpful and that they too will reply and get back to me. Thanks. Warmest regards to you and yours, John.

Hello John, I am another John who is a fan of Hobbies Ltd England. I won't bore people by going over all my history with Hobbies but if you look back on my posts you will find I have posted quite often about the hobbies company and it's history.

Here is a shortened version of my interest in Hobbies. In the 1920's my Grandfather gave fretwork lessons and sold Hobbies items in his shop, my dad was a boy at that time and he was a brilliant fretworker and after the WW2 made stuff from Hobbies designs to sell on the airbase where he worked. As a lad I used 'help' (hinder more like) him eventually I took over his Hobbies A1 machine which I still have.
We always took the Hobbies weekly magazine and I have still have most of them together with many Hobbies handbooks and many hundreds of original Hobbies patterns going back to 1899.

I have always had an interest in the old Hobbies of Dereham company and the Handicrafts company started by ex Hobbies directors and have great respect for the designers at those companies who churned out all those wonderful patterns every single week especially as they had no computers or copy machines to help them.

Below is a picture of my late father in the 1920's at the Hobbies Imperial machine showing off his efforts.

 

[jpw123]

Hi. I lost all my Hobbies Weekly(s) and annuals when the roof of my shed was damaged in bad weather. I am now buying what I can on ebay and refurbishing a new garden shed/workshop. I am overhauling my Little Gem fret machine and giving it a new coat of paint. I am hoping that treadling the machine will strengthen my wobbly old legs. My GP thinks it is a brilliant idea. And of course I should be able to make some lovely keepsakes for my family. Fingers crossed, etc. Thanks for getting back to me and I sincerely hope that others will find my post helpful and that they too will reply and get back to me. Thanks. Warmest regards to you and yours, John.

Hello John, I am another John who is a fan of Hobbies Ltd England. I won't bore people by going over all my history with Hobbies but if you look back on my posts you will find I have posted quite often about the hobbies company and it's history.

Here is a shortened version of my interest in Hobbies. In the 1920's my Grandfather gave fretwork lessons and sold Hobbies items in his shop, my dad was a boy at that time and he was a brilliant fretworker and after the WW2 made stuff from Hobbies designs to sell on the airbase where he worked. As a lad I used 'help' (hinder more like) him eventually I took over his Hobbies A1 machine which I still have.
We always took the Hobbies weekly magazine and I have still have most of them together with many Hobbies handbooks and many hundreds of original Hobbies patterns going back to 1899.

I have always had an interest in the old Hobbies of Dereham company and the Handicrafts company started by ex Hobbies directors and have great respect for the designers at those companies who churned out all those wonderful patterns every single week especially as they had no computers or copy machines to help them.

Below is a picture of my late father in the 1920's at the Hobbies Imperial machine showing off his efforts.

Hi john,
what a wonderful story & great photo of your dad, one to treasure for future generations.

best wishes john.

 

[John Brighter33]

John to John and new-found friends. Great story and a lovely interesting photo of you and the stall selling your fretwork articles. The only fretwork I have left, which I made are a Gothic clock and a Romany caravan made from matchsticks which I altered by adding furnishings inside and did much ornate carving of matchsticks on tho outside of the caravan. Really pleased with them. Quite a few items I made went to my mother-in-law and I have no idea what happened €to them. Perhaps, John ytou can clear up something for me: many sellers on ebay say that most of the Weekly(s) did not carry the free loose patterns/designs. What are your recollections of this?. You are quite right in that the producers of this magazine deserve great respect for then production of the mag and the products/materials they brought out. Even during the war years they managed to keep going, when materials were very short and any materials going were required for the war effort. I remember that the dimensions of the magazine were reduced and the magazine was also reduced to 4 sheets - eight pages. thanks for your post, John, I found it very interesting, informative and knowledgeable. Hope to hear much in this vein from you in the near future.

 

[scrimper]

John to John and new-found friends. Great story and a lovely interesting photo of you and the stall selling your fretwork articles. The only fretwork I have left, which I made are a Gothic clock and a Romany caravan made from matchsticks which I altered by adding furnishings inside and did much ornate carving of matchsticks on tho outside of the caravan. Really pleased with them. Quite a few items I made went to my mother-in-law and I have no idea what happened €to them. Perhaps, John ytou can clear up something for me: many sellers on ebay say that most of the Weekly(s) did not carry the free loose patterns/designs. What are your recollections of this?. You are quite right in that the producers of this magazine deserve great respect for then production of the mag and the products/materials they brought out. Even during the war years they managed to keep going, when materials were very short and any materials going were required for the war effort. I remember that the dimensions of the magazine were reduced and the magazine was also reduced to 4 sheets - eight pages. thanks for your post, John, I found it very interesting, informative and knowledgeable. Hope to hear much in this vein from you in the near future.

Can I just point out that the picture is not me it's my late father showing off some of the things he made.

Regarding the Hobbies weekly magazines; they did carry loose sheet patterns from the early days up to it's demise in 1965, there were a few times during WW2 when a sheet was not included.
Many of the issues sold on Ebay do not come with designs and the reason for this is because either they have been lost or as often happened the patterns were sacrificed when someone made the item, up until recent times the public did not have access to copy machines or scanners and the advice from hobbies was to paste the pattern down on the wood and cut it out thus destroying the pattern.
Some people such as my father used carbon paper and traced the pattern so as to keep it for later use, which is why quite often when one finds a pattern it has pencil marks on it.

Below is a picture of an item I made recently from an old hobbies design from the first world war.

 

[John Brighter33]

Hi John, great to hear from you. I really like the design and, of course , the article as made and finished by you. I would be really grateful if you could let mr know the edition number etc. and I can look out for it on ebay. Does this design come on a loose free design, or is it included ii the inside of the magazine. I have now got several wall brackets and where they should have a mirror, (which were available seaerately from Hobbies), I was thinking of making them into photo frames. I really love this hobby and it provides such lovely and often very useful articles. Looking back through these vintage magazines makes me realise how much things have changed. When I was a child there was no such thing as TV or computer games. we dsid have the wireless which we listened to together as a family. We learned a lot about our roots from listening to the stories told to us by our parents. Toys were mostly made from wood and I still love to take hold of such toys, even newly made ones, and feel the wood. Brilliant. I do so hope that we will see more of you fretwork creations - please keep up the good work. Take care, John, warmesr regards to you and yours, John.

 

[scrimper]

The design is no 1017 dated 10th April 1915 so almost 100 years old, it came as a separate design sheet, I found it quite hard to do as it is delicate in places and has 130+ internal cut-outs. It is on a large design sheet but what I do is process it through photoshop and place it on two separate sheets for printing. I am sure I could arrange to email a copy to you if you wanted one.

There are 3 pages of free original Hobbies patterns that you can download here http://www.finescrollsaw.com/freepatterns.htm just right click on any you want and select "download as link or image" to save to your PC. they are in PDF format.

 

[John Brighter33]

John that would be brilliant if you could email me a copy with the instructions. I am sure I will not be able to produce something as precise and lovely as that which you have produced. As you say it is a very delicate. However I would love to have a go and should be able to produce something that will not disgrace me. Like most Hobbies patterns it is certainly beautiful. Now all eagerness and can't wait to get my garden shed/workshop up and running. One thing I( am not too sure about is the finishing. Thanks, John. Certainly glad I found you, or you found me. Warmest regards, John.

 

[Cymres1]

I've had one of these fretsaws for some years, bought in a local antique shop for a reasonable price, have been given some blades but with time ticking on they have gone hiding in a safe place. Would love to have a go at getting it working but (I'm not very technical) which blades are suitable please. Glad of a little advice please, being a retired lady new to woodworking (and really enjoying it). Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Droogs]

blades similar to these will suite you nicely a good mix of blade types to experiment with. I have one of these saws and love using it for fun.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/163530319078

 

[Richardson1958]

Hep needed. I have an old Hobbies A1 fret saw that I used to use but the leather belt has broken. I tried a new 6mm leather belt but it slipped so I cut a bit out and tightened it but it snapped. I have seen on ebay 5/16 leather belt used on sewing machines. Will this work?

My machine was a mid green in colour. What was the original colour so that I can restore it. I have seen some which are blue.

i currently use a scrollsaw from Aldi